We ignore Asians at our peril

That mission statement must have seemed like a good idea at the time. When it was delivered a couple of years ago it pressed all the right buttons, suggesting a vibrant and ambitious body - the England and Wales Cricket Board - driving the game forward. Just to remind you it read: 'The most significant objective is to establish the England men's team as number one in the world rankings by 2007 and to win the World Cup by the same date.'

One or two problems have since emerged. The first is that the statement was so striking that no one has forgotten it. My impression has always been that the main purpose of a five-, seven- or 10-year plan is to keep the critics at bay in the short term, to buy some time on the assumption that any mission statement will soon fade from the memory. The second difficulty is that the authors must have omitted to take into consideration the fact that England visit Australia again in the winter of 2006-07. To fulfil the mission statement they have to beat them. Er... how are they going to do that?

For the moment we are enmeshed in the blame game. Duncan Fletcher and Nasser Hussain are under fire for the mismanagement of the England team. They in turn point the finger at the volume of county cricket, although increasingly this is a spurious target. In the era of central contracts, England players barely play any county cricket. They have to learn their trade on the hoof in international matches.

Meanwhile, the Australians increasingly insist that their Test cricketers play as much domestic cricket as possible. Australia's leading cricketers, from Steve Waugh downwards, are queueing up to play against this English side and they are compelled to participate in as many state games as possible. Andy Bichel says that county cricket has enhanced his game, while the English see the county game as a cause of their demise. Wherever the truth lies it is mighty difficult to see how England can match Australia in the foreseeable future.

Listed below are two possible teams for the Ashes contest of 2006-07. Examine them and you will see how tricky it is for that infamous ECB target to be reached. You will note that there are no Aboriginal cricketers in the Australia team despite the campaign being led by Dennis Lillee in Western Australia to unearth fresh fast-bowling talent from Aboriginal communities. Even so, it looks a pretty strong side.

The England team contains three cricketers of Asian origin. Elsewhere in these pages, Tom Moody has pinpointed the Asian community as an essential source of future England players. There may be more than three by 2007. There are several candidates who are not included in the team, such as Worcestershire's Vikram Solanki and Kadeer Ali and Nottinghamshire's Bilal Shafayat. Moody is right to focus on the Asian community; England must maximise all available resources. But I know which side I would be backing.

As usual, the Australia team did not take as long to select as the England one. One or two assumptions had to be made: that Steve Waugh will eventually call it a day; more seriously, that the cor nerstones of the current Australia bowling attack, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath, will also have retired. This cannot be guaranteed. When the England side next visit Australia, McGrath will be 36, Warne 37. They could still be fit enough and hungry enough.

If we assume that Warne and McGrath have been pensioned off by 2006 - Warne will be a Channel Nine icon; McGrath may have retreated to his farm - then Matthew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist would be the old men of the side at 35. Ricky Ponting, at 32, would be in his pomp and the natural leader. Jason Gillespie, at 31, would take on the McGrath role.

The 'newcomers' would include Michael Clarke, the dashing New South Wales batsman, unable to get to the crease when his state side thrashed England in Sydney on Friday. Shane Watson, who plays for Tasmania, is a rarity among Aussie cricketers, a genuine bowling all-rounder. Ashley Noffke of Queensland and, briefly, Middlesex, is probably the best of the young pacemen while Cameron White, a leg-spinner from Victoria, now 19, is likely to overtake the orthodox off-spinner Nathan Hauritz in the pecking order.

As for England, there are more ifs and buts, and more apprehension. As usual the tail is too long and the fitness records of the bowlers too suspect. Can we be sure that Andrew Flintoff will have overcome the effects of his hernia operation by 2006? If not, Surrey's Rikki Clarke stands by. Warwickshire's James Troughton may be a strong batting contender alongside Shafayat and Kadeer Ali.

Alec Stewart will have retired by then, though he is the greatest survivor of our time, but there is no guarantee that Jamie Foster will be his long-term successor behind the stumps. Currently at the Academy are Nottinghamshire's Chris Read and Glamorgan's Mark Wallace.

We must hope that Simon Jones makes a full recovery from his ghastly knee injury so that he can terrorise batsmen in the manner of Brett Lee and, echoing Tom Moody's concerns, that Steve Harmison's confidence has not been shredded by his premature introduction to international one-day cricket. If not, Lancashire's James Anderson has some of the right credentials, though it is slightly alarming to hear that his action is being remodelled at the Academy.

In the spin department, no mystery men are on the horizon. We can admire Richard Dawson for his enthusiasm to bowl at anyone - Sachin Tendulkar one moment, Gilchrist the next - rather than any extraordinary ability. Ian Blackwell's run-scoring capabilities are alluring but the standard of his bowling is not. The young spinner with the greatest potential is another young Asian, Monty Panesar of Northamptonshire. If only he could bat like Blackwell and field like Dawson...

Frankly - and I don't wish to sound defeatist or to undermine the noble goals of the ECB - if England were the second best side in the world I would be a happy man. That's not a bad mission statement: to be the second best by 2007.